Sep

Documentary Shorts Festival

Friday, September 14 & Saturday, September 15

RJ RIPPER Directed by: Joey Schusler, Aidan Haley 13 minutes
Rajesh Magar has been obsessed with bikes since he was a small child growing up in Kathmandu, Nepal. When the other kids were studying, he’d be dreaming about, designing and drawing bikes. As the son of a construction worker and housemaid, however, a bike wasn’t easy to come by. Undeterred, he built one, a clunky Frankenstein, but a mountain bike nonetheless. He started racing, and his drive and raw talent got noticed, leading to a job as a mountain bike guide and a path to professional racing. Today, Nepal’s National Champion is living proof that it pays to stick to your passion, no matter how implausible it seems.

WHY NOT NOW: VIVIAN STANCIL Directed by: Riley Hooper 3 minutes
Blind and afraid of water, Vivian Stancil learned to swim at 48. “I heard that blind people can’t swim,” Stancil says, followed by: “Oh, yes they can!” Two hundred and twenty-one medals later, at half her former body weight, Stencil is still at it.

THE FRENCHY Directed by: Michelle Smith 17 minutes
Jaques Houot, 82, may just have found the fountain of youth. The Carbondale, Colorado-based French ski racer, downhill mountain biker, road cyclist and incorrigible flirt is the embodiment of joi de vivre. Houot has survived some two dozen close calls, including avalanches, cancer, car accidents, a heart attack and even attempted murder. As a survivor, he explains, he tries to enjoy every day he has, ripping through his mountains with his signature catchphrase, “No problem!” “When you laugh, you add one extra hour on your life. I’m going to die very old, because I love to laugh,” he says.

INTERSECTION: MICAYLA GATTO Directed by: Lacy Kemp 5 minutes
Professional mountain biker and artist Micayla Gatto recreates in her paintings the sweeping vistas of ridgelines she rides on her bike. Both cornering berms and putting paint brush to canvas allow Gatto to achieve that magical flow state where she exists completely and happily in the present moment. Intersection takes us inside the vibrant space where artist and athlete collide, as Gatto pedals through her artwork with a splash of color.

LIFEBOAT Directed by: Skye Fitzgerald 32 minutes
“Another tragedy in the Mediterranean,” a newscaster reports after a flimsy boat carrying 600 migrants sinks in the dangerous central Mediterranean crossing between Libya and Italy. Masked men wearing gloves pull back huge white tarps covering some of the victims. Skye Fitzgerald’s Lifeboat, a 2017 Mountainfilm Commitment Grantee, goes on to chronicle a successful rescue by the German nonprofit Sea-Watch. “Libya is hell,” says a survivor. Conditions in Libya offered “two options: Life or death,” says Aisha. She beat the odds, many others did not.

LOST TRIBE OF AFRICA Directed by: Asha Stuart 16 min
Over 500 years ago an African tribe arrived on the shores of India. Their ancestors escaped into the forest where they live today, most of them Hindu converts where they are members of the Siddi tribe. Siddi means “enlightened ones” but the Siddi’s are “Untouchables” in India’s caste system. The film asks the question: “How do you empower the youth in a world where people think they are less than human.”

A NEW VIEW OF THE MOON Directed by: Wylie Overstreet 4 minutes
Wylie Overstreet was hanging out in his L.A. apartment one night and, out of boredom, decided to take his high-powered telescope out to the street to peer at the moon. Pretty soon people began wandering up and asking him what he was up to. When he showed them, they nearly fell over in awe. A New View of the Moon is just the reminder we need to keep looking up. Because as Galileo said, back in 1610, “it’s a beautiful and wondrous sight to behold the body of the moon.”

THE PIÑATA KING Directed by: Paul Storrie, Chris Lee, Charlie Kwai 4 minutes
In Mexico, no child’s birthday party is complete without a piñata. Piñatas made by the Piñata King, along with his family, friends and most of his fellow townspeople, are unique pieces of crafted artisanship. For some kids, the beauty of the piñata is worth more than the sweet goodies hidden inside. For others, it’s still all about the goodies.

CLIMBING OUT OF A DISASTER Directed by: Dominic Gill 9 minutes
Bryant Huffman spent his days deep water soloing, sport climbing and bouldering as founder of Climbing Puerto Rico. Then Hurricane Maria dropped a nuclear bomb of water and wind, which destroyed much of the island. With his work as a guide temporarily suspended, Huffman and his climbing buddies put their skills to good use by morphing into emergency arborists. And out of the devastation comes a glimmer of something positive. The hurricane peeled huge chunks of limestone from cliffs, creating scores of new routes. Climbing Out of a Disaster is about shifting your perspective to see the silver lining in calamity.

LOS LECHEROS Directed by: Jim Cricchi 21 minutes
In 17 years of working at a dairy farm, manager Guillermo Ramos Bravo says he has never seen a person born in the U.S. ask his boss for a job. Third-generation farmer John Rose now recalls a time when farms were typically worked entirely by family; now, it’s “about the last thing that you would do; it’s something that’s relegated to the immigrants.” Los Lecheros explains that farms with immigrant employees produce 70 percent of the U.S. milk supply.

SER Directed by: Pep Cuberes 11 minutes
Where does a professional competitive ski mountaineer go to escape the pressures and demands of her career? Ski mountaineering, of course. To mountains far, far away from judges and the media and autograph-seekers, where she can “dream in a playground of infinite games.”

FREE LIKE THE BIRDS Directed by: Paola Mendoza 10 minutes
Precocious Sophie Cruz convinced her martial arts teacher to let her attend classes when she was just 3 years old. She is a luchadora, a fighter. So when her parents, who are undocumented immigrants, told her they don’t have papers and could be deported back to Mexico, Sophie vowed to keep her family together. On a trip to Washington, D.C., Sophie, then just 6, cleared a security barrier to deliver her message to Pope Francis. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, which would grant protected status to Sophie’s family and thousands of others and let them live free like the birds.

MANUEL Directed by: Gabriela Cavanagh 8 minutes
In a small shack by the train tracks on the outskirts of Old Havana, 87-year-old Manuel Quintana Godinez sells an exotic handmade concoction called Pru Oriental for a living. He advertises the drink as a kind of elixir, good for the kidneys, cystitis, migraines, gastritis, bronchitis, circulation and depression. It is, according to Manuel’s hand-painted ad board, “A good drink for whatever age and interesting for those over 50.” To drive the implied point home, the board also says, “If you have a stallion — it’s restorative!” Like Manuel’s tonic, this short profile piece is sweet and uplifting (and not just for those over 50).

YOJANI: A CUBA SKATE STORY Directed by: Corey McLean 2 minutes
Skateboarding is an anomaly in Havana, Cuba and you have to be creative to find good places to skate. But one skateboarder is using his sport to bring young people together. Yojani is a snapshot of a skater who is creating a family out of the nascent Cuban skating community.

MY MOM VALA Directed by: RC Cone 10 minutes
Rivers run through Vala Árnadóttir’s blood; she was raised by fishing guides. She lives in the city of Reykjavík, Iceland, with her 10-year-old daughter Mathilda, and teaches Mathilda the art of casting, the tricks of fish, the peace of standing on the banks watching the water flow by. But when Vala travels to Greenland for guiding work, immersing herself in a landscape that’s as beautiful and fertile as it is barren and unforgiving, Mathilda doesn’t come along. Not yet. This short film paints the fantastical and mysterious country of Greenland through Mathilda’s fantasies and Vala’s eyes.

LOVED BY ALL: THE STORY OF APA SHERPA Directed by: Eric Crosland 14 minutes
“I wouldn’t wish this for anyone,” says Apa Sherpa, who summited Everest 21 times, having started as a porter at the age of 12 following the death of his father. Eric Crosland’s Loved By All leaves no doubt that for many Sherpa, the hard, dangerous work of hauling gear and guiding westerners on Everest is undertaken not for glory, but to provide for their families. Apa Sherpa is now devoted to providing educational opportunities to children of the Khumbu Valley, hoping to spare them his fate. “The true beauty of Nepal is not the mountains, but the people who live in their shadow,” he says, calling into question the Everest industry, fueled by Sherpa labor.

HAYLEY: 90 SECONDS ON FEAR Directed by: Stian Smestad 2 minutes
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear.” That’s the mantra of Hayley Ashburn as she walks a 170-foot highline between outcroppings in the wintry Dolomites.

THE WOLF PACK Directed by: Nick Waggoner, Zac Ramras 13 minutes
High in the San Juan Mountains above Silverton, Colorado, a pack of runners roams, jogging through meadows, hiking over mineral-stained peaks, ducking through forests and exploring the rugged landscape of their backyard. It’s the Braford-Lefebvre family — mom, dad and three kids — who have used running both as a healing mechanism and a tool to help them experience life together. The Wolf Pack chronicles a family raised the right way — on fresh air, high peaks and the wonder of the outdoors.

LIFE COACH Directed by: Renan Ozturk, Taylor Rees 13 minutes
Climber and filmmaker Renan Ozturk makes the pilgrimage to the toothy and harsh landscape of Alaska’s Ruth Glacier every year. This time around, he and fellow climber Alex Honnold have
their sights set on a beautiful route up Mount Dickey. But the weather is horrendous. So instead, they end up sitting in tents talking about their feelings. What unfolds is not your typical climbing film, but rather a touching examination into life’s big questions.

SURF THE LINE Directed by: Jérémy Frey 3 minutes
The Flying Frenchies are back, and this time they are surfing a 2,000-foot highline in the Vercors Mountains of France — hauling ass at 50 miles an hour and laughing hysterically the whole way.

BEYOND THE HORIZON Directed by: Jon Klaczkiewicz 26 minutes
This is a film about transformation & redemption. Rankin Jackson, a struggling Honduran islander gets caught up in the dark & dangerous world of drug running, yet against all odds his experience in that netherworld leads him to a new life that is bright & promising.

ESCAPE Directed by: Anjali Nayar 8 minutes
There is something gloriously incongruous — and almost incomprehensible — about a risk-averse, nonathletic, native Rwandan DJ finding the real meaning in his life by pedaling across Canada to its frozen Arctic Ocean shore in an attempt to break the record for the longest, continuous, fixed- gear bike ride. Through the course of this unlikely adventure, the protagonist, Jean-Aime Bigirimana, also finds that the truth about escaping is not as black and white as, say, his spandex silhouette against the cold Canadian snowscape.

Mountainfilm on Tour Southampton has been made possible thanks to the support of Elyn & Jeff Kronemeyer and Brown Harris Stevens of the Hamptons.

Mountainfilm on Tour Southampton is part of the Mountainfilm Festival’s World Tour.

MOUNTAINFILM ON TOUR

Mountainfilm travels year-round and worldwide with a selection of current and best-loved films from the annual festival in Telluride. We present both single-event and multi-day shows, hosted by a wide array of organizations, including schools and colleges, corporations, community groups and theater operators. We are regularly called on by nonprofit organizations to be part of fundraising events. Each year, we select the best short films from our annual festival and make them available to our hosts to select for their shows. Our fee-based structure gives local organizers the ability to set ticket prices, sell local sponsorship packages and conduct raffles to achieve financial and fundraising goals. Each show is emceed by a Mountainfilm presenter who guides the audience through the program, often sharing personal stories from his or her interactions with the filmmaker or the film’s subjects.

14

Sep

EAST END COLLECTED5 and EEC Jr.

Saturday Apr 20 - Sunday Jun 09

Curated by Paton Miller, the now fifth year of this popular exhibition continues to celebrate 31 new artists including six teenagers and marks Southampton Arts Center as a home where the East End arts scene can continue to thrive.
This exhibition has been made possible thanks, in part, to the generosity of Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Public funding provided by Suffolk County.

EEC5 “Hangout”

06:00 pm, Thursday May 30

Meet the artists of East End Collected5 and EEC Jr. as well as Curator Paton Miller at our popular Thursday night social club, “Hangout.”
Come view the new exhibition, socialize with the artists and members of the community, have a glass of wine, listen to music, play ping-pong and just hang out!